Birthday Post App Wins At Facebook Developers World Hack In Austin

A group from tech agency R/GA traveled to the Facebook Developers World Hack competition in Austin, Texas, hoping to solve a simple problem: what to write on a friend’s timeline on their birthday. Knowing that “Happy birthday!” is entirely passé, the two developers created an application that suggests a more creative post for a friend’s special day. They ended up winning the best mobile application category at the Austin World Hack.

Facebook loves putting on hackathons — competitions where developers have a limited amount of time to come up with an innovative app within the site’s application-programming interface. The social network announced earlier that it is taking the show on the road, hosting hackathons in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Jakarta, and Moscow, among several other cities. The World Hack in Austin — the only U.S. stop — kicked off the tour.

The R/GA team used Facebook’s newest SDK for Apple iOS to create Birthday Poster.

R/GA’s Will Turnage blogged about his team’s accomplishment:

If you’re like me, when you notice it’s someone’s birthday on Facebook, at least 30 other people have already wished them “Happy Birthday.” Or worse, you don’t even realize it’s their birthday until the next day, and you forgot to write anything on their timeline.

Our app helps you with this by providing sample messages and photo templates that allow you to wish your friend a happy birthday, or profusely apologize for missing his or her birthday.

Here’s a screenshot, courtesy of the blog:

Readers: Does this sound like a pretty cool app?